


Abandonment

by Tellurion



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Gabriel's Past, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-05-30 20:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19410550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tellurion/pseuds/Tellurion
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley were hoping to be left alone after the Almost-pocalypse, but it isn't long before two archangels show up at their doorstep with surprising information and a demand.Gabriel has abandoned his post. And they need someone to find him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】Abandonment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20053054) by [Wadeye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wadeye/pseuds/Wadeye)



_An angel stood on a stone outcropping, shining with the glory of Heaven. Before him were billowing, multicolored clouds suspended in the darkness of the void that moved and changed with each gesture of his hand. Behind him there came the muted wing beats and soft footfalls of another who gazed admiringly at the sight._  
  
_“What is it that you’re making Raphael?”_  
  
_“It’s called a nebula. In time stars will be born from it.”_  
  
_“It’s beautiful! Will you show me how to make one?”_  
  
_“You may help me with this one Gabriel, if it pleases you.”_  
  
_“It’s no trouble?”_  
  
_“None at all. Stand in front of me. Here, I will show you.”_  
  
_They stood together, Gabriel’s back against Raphael’s chest, letting Raphael guide his gestures with gentle touches. Before them the nebula expanded and unfolded in great shimmering billows. There was a rustling of wings and the red-haired angel gestured as he leapt off towards the swirling star-stuff._  
  
_“Come and let us see!”_  
  
_They dove into the midst of it and there was color and brightness all around. Gabriel flew rapidly from one cloud of dust to the next, eyes wide, marveling at each in turn before spinning back around to the other angel whose eyes were fixed on him more than they were the stars above._  
  
_“Can we make another?”_  
  
_“We can make as many as you wish.”_  
  
_Raphael held his hand out and as Gabriel took it, a feeling passed between them, an expanding warmth, a joy and delight at the sight of one another and all they had made together. They exchanged smiles and flew off to do the work of creation._

* * *

* * *

  
  
When the rebellion happens, Gabriel is out among the stars. There isn’t much left to do by then, but he enjoys seeing them - shining in the distance with their bright colors, subtly shifting. Humans, Her latest creation, would not be able to see them for a long while, might not ever be able to venture near them. They are a secret waiting to be discovered, a treasure the angels alone can appreciate for now.  
  
Then a great clamor rises, unlike anything he has ever heard, reaching his ears despite the void all around him. It’s the furthest thing he can imagine from the celestial harmonies that normally float and chime about the heavens. It is loud and clangorous and feels like it is reverberating in his very core, shaking loose the foundations of his soul. He rushes back and when he arrives, he can scarcely grasp it - there is smoke and screaming. Angels are fighting… others. Twisted creatures. But he cannot tell what they are. Where have they even come from? Who has attacked them? Surely he would know if God made any such as these? He sees the flash of Michael’s sword and lands beside her. “What has happened?”  
  
“Lucifer,” Michael grunts, sheathing a blade with splatters of gold and black ichor on it. “He has rebelled against the Lord. And you are late.” A second sword materializes in her hands and she holds it out towards him.  
  
He turns back to the battlefield and realizes with dawning horror who the creatures are. They have wings, but they are burning, scorched black. They have coronets, but they are twisted and misshapen. They are - were - angels.  
  
“Where are the others?” His grip on the sword feels clammy, his stomach twisting into knots. His gaze darts back and forth over the battlefield, searching. But the smoke settled in between the clouds makes it difficult to see. The shapes of the former angels are twisting further as well - most are beyond recognition.  
  
“Uriel is protecting the throne. Come with me. We need to find Lucifer, make sure that he does not get anywhere near the Lord.” The gold on Michael’s face shimmers, a sparkle reflected in her eyes.  
  
Dutifully, Gabriel takes wing beside her, but they do not get far. A maw opens up in front of them and light, sharp and blinding, comes down from the throne. The smell of sulfur wafts up, nauseating and acrid, belching up from the depths of a pit that seems to go down forever. He cannot see the bottom and instinctively flies upward to get further away from it. His heart clenches in terror.  
  
The beams of light strike the twisted angels and they Fall. The sounds of battle pale next to their screams, echoes of agony that trail them all the way down. There are so many, he thinks. It must be near to half of their brethren, howling as they are torn away and tumbling down into the depths. Then the clouds close up over them, the light fades, and there is a deathly silence.  
  
Gabriel looks around to where the angels that were in the midst of the fighting are beginning to recover, to stand up and look around at the far emptier Heaven. Some of them still struggle and bleed gold from bright gashes in their limbs and sides. Their faces contort in pain.  
  
“Where is Raphael? There are wounded, we need to find him so he can heal them!”  
  
Michael fixes him with a steely glare. Her mouth is thin, pressed together, and she says nothing. Gabriel can feel his head shaking.  
  
“No. No... _NO!_ He wouldn’t! Lucifer was proud but not him! It must have been some kind of… misunderstanding. There has to be some explanation.” He feels the sword slipping from his hands as she keeps her impassive gaze fixed on him. He avoids meeting her eyes, instead looks around for a flash of curly red hair that he cannot, and will never, find. _“Why?”_  
  
“He asked too many questions.” She flies nearer to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. Her touch is warm but his stomach still churns like he might be sick. “Remember that.”  
  
Then she flies up higher, presumably to find where Uriel is, leaving him there with the blade still in his hand, staring out over the remnants of the battle.

* * *

  
  
As Heaven rebuilds from the attack, discussions are had and decisions are made. There will be another battle. Of course there will be. They cannot let this rebellion stand and Lucifer - or Satan as he reportedly styles himself along with a litany of other titles that Gabriel cannot fully list - is doubtless preparing for the same. He and his hoard of demons, as they are now called (for certainly there is nothing angelic left of any of them and they must be named otherwise). They will fight again and this time Heaven will win outright. Everyone is certain of that. A Great Plan begins to circulate among their ranks, which promises of an Armageddon, a final battle in which they can destroy the ones already cast out.  
  
Michael takes to the Great Plan with enthusiasm. She institutes regular drills for the other angels, spends her time on everything from training sessions to weapons design to considering what raiment they shall wear when they finally triumph over their foes. Uriel concerns herself more with Heaven’s fortifications - the security of the throne, the impregnability of the celestial city. Walls, high and white and sterile, are built all around.  
  
While Michael trains and Uriel builds, Gabriel is left to take charge of the others. It is a weighty responsibility, to have the activities of the Heavenly Host reporting up to him, to oversee and coordinate the blessings they dispense and the battles they must intermittently fight with the Adversary until the Great War finally arrives. There is much to do but he will manage. He must. The war to come is very important, Michael has stressed this, but it is equally important that Satan and his minions gain no ground in the intervening millennia. That all goes as planned.  
  
Before the buildings Uriel has them constructing are finished, Gabriel sits on the clouds and thinks about the moment when they opened up and revealed the chasm that lurks beneath. He thinks about the cries of the Fallen. This cannot happen to the others. This cannot happen to _him_. If he is separated from Her divine love and grace, he will have nothing. His mind drifts sometimes but he quickly reels it in. Too many questions, he tells himself, and the ground might open up again. Besides. With Michael training and Uriel building and God moving in silent, mysterious ways above them, it’s not as though there’s even anyone to ask.  
  
When Uriel and her angels are finally finished, the highest floor of the tallest building is reserved for the archangels, a corner office given to him with floor to ceiling windows. It is endlessly bright; the lights from the towers they have built wash out the sky at night. The floor is solid beneath his feet and he does what he can to push thoughts of what lurks in the basement, endless floors below him, away from his mind. Their victory will help, he thinks. Wipe them out so that he does not have to remember, so that there are no lurking reminders of how everything went wrong. He still doesn’t understand how it all went so awry. But to know why would mean to ask and anyway, that hardly matters now. What matters is Heaven triumphing so that they may inhabit a world where such terrors do not exist.   
  
It will be better that way; that’s why it’s the Great Plan.

* * *

  
  
At first, with the decimated host and so many remaining close to Heaven while they heal, Gabriel’s job goes more smoothly than he expected. He tries to give his interactions with each angel a personal touch, inviting them to his office to hear their reports when they have time to return to heaven. He tries to listen, to understand what they need to properly fulfill their duties - new corporations, holy water, blessed relics. Even simple things like tools to groom their wings and keep them in order while they are away from Heaven and the company of those who might do it for them.  
  
But as time goes on, more angels take on tasks which he must oversee. The word of the Great Plan has spread among the rank and file and they all profess eagerness to see it accomplished. New angels are also coming into being, more every day, to replace the numbers of the ones who had been cast down. Soon there are too many for him to speak with each one. He has them submit reports instead but even those pile up on his desk until he can scarcely do more then scan them, stamp them, and set them aside. He does not understand how Michael and Uriel manage, and says as much when he next chances to see them.  
  
“Delegate,” Michael says brusquely. “There is too much to do to be spending your time analyzing every minor miracle or demonic encounter. You are an archangel; you need to spend your time in better ways,” she goes on with just a hint of admonishment in her voice. Then she looks him up and down, mouth drawing into a thin line. “And perhaps you will find it easier to take charge if you look a little less…”  
  
Heat fills Gabriel’s cheeks and he knows they must be bright red. Though their forms are not grounded in anything biological, he - last created of the archangels - has always looked the youngest. Shorter, face softer and more rounded, hair still in chestnut ringlets like so many wore at the start instead of pinned up like Michael’s or cropped short like Uriel’s. Not a child but still with an air of little brother about him, for that’s what he was at the start. He _is_ still an archangel, still bright with Her glory for no angel is otherwise. But perhaps Michael is right.  
  
“Of course,” he nods. “Thank you for your advice.”  
  
Michael smiles at him and he thinks that it was the right thing to say.  
  
He selects a few angels to report to him and then soon enough they have those reporting to them and others still that report to them and so on down the line. Apart from the few at the highest levels, most angels stop seeing him directly. When he chances to see them in the halls there is scarcely any recognition and a few do not even seem to realize who he is. Michael’s words echo in his mind and he stops wandering. Instead, he spends his days in his white-walled, windowed office waiting for reports to arrive. Angels quickly duck in and out when they do come, apologizing, saying they do not wish to waste too much of his time.  
  
Now and again he thinks he would like to take some time off, go and see whether there have been any stars born from nebulae created aeons ago. But there is work to be done and it is important work. All in service of the Great Plan. Perhaps when the Great Plan comes to pass he will not need to supervise angels going about their blessings and can instead go back out among the stars again. Once the work is finished and he can be spared from his current duties.

* * *

  
  
When the time comes for him to choose a corporation so that he might go down to earth himself, he knows what he wants. Tall, broad, with a square chin. Just enough grey in the hair to give a suggestion of age - not of infirmity, but of experience and authority. Solid and sturdy, confident and straightforward. It’s a bit awkward at first, to be so much taller than he was, to slip into this body like putting on a glove that doesn’t quite fit, that is a little too large at the fingertips and bunches up at the joints. But he will grow into it, he tells himself. In time.  
  
His clothing is similar as he favors vestments that suggest, and not subtly, that he is a man of importance. Rich cloth, stiff collars, well-pressed and close fitting to the strong limbs of his corporation. Accents of gold with patterns of wings. The humans take great stock in these things and he takes note of the way they look at him when he appears. Even without knowing he is ethereal they accord him respect.  
  
Despite these changes, his eyes are the still the same as they always were - the deep, star-flecked, glowing purple of a nebula that swirls far off into the reaches of space.  
  
There are many things he does not enjoy about his corporation while it is on earth that he ends up avoiding altogether. Food sits heavy in his stomach and makes him feel sluggish; frequently it is sour or bitter and the texture feels strange in his mouth. Breathing is difficult to remember to do, but if he allows him self to need to then his lungs burn when they’re not being filled. Unchecked, his corporation seems to ooze fluid at every opportunity - sweat, mucus, tears. He tried sleep once or twice but it was dark behind his eyes and the darkness echoed with screams and was filled with contorting, slithering shapes.  
  
But then the humans begin to invent sport and it’s _wonderful_. Something that does not sully his celestial corporation, but refines it. He first encounters sport in ancient Greece, where they enjoy physical endeavors so much they award laurels to the very best of them. Wrestling, the pankration, the stade, the dolichos- they make his body feel invigorated. The horse racing he could do without. Terrible creatures, horses. But everything else he pursues with delight. He runs, stretching his long limbs over long distances, and while he runs it’s as though all other thoughts slide away from his mind. He oils himself and steps into the ring against others, kicking and pounding, body against body, yanking limbs and forcing them to the ground. He rarely loses and the humans shower him with coronets of olive leaves. Some even approach him, looking at his corporation in wonder, even daring to touch it outside of the ring. Though many of these same eventually back off from him, disappointed in a way that he does not fully understand.  
  
It is, perhaps, a bit untoward that he should participate in a festival for heathen gods. But it is also a celebration of the bodies that She created and, he thinks, She cannot be truly displeased by that, can She?  
  
Still, there’s a twinge of uncertainty that feels perilously close to a question, so at first he keeps his participation to himself and then eventually stops competing altogether. But he cannot resist keeping the crowns, kept eternally vibrant and green in a cabinet in the corner of his office. And he does not stop testing the limits of his corporation. Each new culture that springs up develops their own traditions, new ways to contort and test the bodies they have been given.  
  
Yet even after centuries, he will come to find he still enjoys running the most, the sense of moving forward to something better ahead while simultaneously leaving what’s past him further behind. When he runs, pleasant exhaustion gradually overcomes his body and after a good, long run everything else, even sleep, is not so terrible.

* * *

  
  
Sandalphon is promoted to replace the empty position amongst the archangels. Not Lucifer’s. Who could replace Lucifer, the Shining One, the Morningstar? But there is a vacancy and there is so much work for the archangels to do that it must be filled. Ergo, Sandalphon. He stands shoulder to shoulder with Gabriel, smirking up at him. He smirks a great deal; he seems to enjoy it almost as much as he enjoys smiting, another thing he does often. He looks pleased with himself each time and looks at Gabriel like he expects him to feel the same unbridled, righteous enthusiasm. Each time Gabriel wonders who he might have struck down. If he killed a demon with bright golden eyes.  
  
When Gabriel speaks with him he doesn’t quite know how to arrange his face. The first time he tries to smile back as Sandalphon grinned through details of a demon’s shrieking demise, it feels like when he first changed into his corporation. New muscles flex as he contorts his mouth in a way that he isn’t quite used to, a rictus that stretches across his face, pulls his lips tight and makes his cheeks ache. But Sandalphon seems encouraged and goes on telling the tale with greater enthusiasm, so he supposes that he did it properly.   
  
Sandalphon becomes his main point of interaction, assuming many of the duties that he had been taking care of, interacting with angels lower in the hierarchy and accompanying him on surprise visits to earth to check up on the angels there. They wander the halls, discussing important matters - all revolving around the Great Plan of course. With Sandalphon there to help, he has a little more time and once, instead of pacing through Heaven as they normally do, he suggests they go a little further afield. Get a change of scenery. He takes his reports out where the stars are, shows Sandalphon the nebulae.  
  
“Bit of a wasted effort, aren’t they?” He sniffs. “All the way out here, nobody to see them. What’s the point?” He looks at Gabriel with the same wilting gaze that Michael always seems so practiced at.  
  
Gabriel makes a note not to take Sandalphon out there again, doesn’t even mention them to him. Silly, he admonishes himself. He has real work he needs to be doing, work that will see the fulfillment of the Great Plan, and no time to spare for frivolity. So he walks the hallways with his colleague, listening to more tales of demons cast down and discorporated.

* * *

  
Most of the angels assigned to earth are only there for a brief duration, rotating shifts so that none of them need to stay on assignment too long away from Heaven. But over the years, Gabriel gradually realizes that there is one who seems to be an exception. A Principality named Aziraphale, assigned to an area the humans call England. His first few visits to Aziraphale are nothing very remarkable - he usually stammers his way through a recitation of deeds that he did frequently, scarcely even looks at Gabriel when he does. The years go by and he changes little.  
  
The preparations for the Great Plan begin to accelerate and years go by before he is able to pay a visit to him again. There never seems to be much trouble where he’s at, so Gabriel assumes he’s doing well enough and spends his time elsewhere. He doesn’t return until Europe is in the midst of the Renaissance. When he does, he finds something utterly unexpected.  
  
He visits Aziraphale and feels _love_. All around him, in constant waves, like a familiar blanket falling over his shoulders. He can’t remember the last time he felt like this, if he ever felt like this - if he did, it was long, long ago. Perhaps when he was there to deliver the news to Mary? But even that was not quite the same. Aziraphale continues speaking but Gabriel barely registers what he is saying. Everything feels warm; the skin of his corporation is prickling and he cannot focus.  
  
“Yes. Yes,” he nods when Aziraphale’s meandering conversation finally stops. “Very good. Keep it up.” He gives him a clasp on the shoulder and shakes him a little before retreating back to Heaven.  
  
He sits behind his desk and thinks about what just happened. The feeling is already dissipating, fading like a fog burnt off by the sunlight. His thoughts are interrupted by a knocking and as he looks up to see Sandalphon, the feeling evaporates entirely. His usual smile slides on to his face and he stands up to meet Sandalphon and hear whatever reports he might have. But the incident is not lost from his mind.  
  
Soon, he thinks, he will need to visit Aziraphale again, see if the same feeling is still there. Perhaps have him recalled to Heaven, to find out more about how such an aura could surround an angel as unassuming as Aziraphale. It makes him feel restless and unsettled, still bothering his thought long after Sandalphon has left. Too distracted to focus, he returns to earth, far from England or from anything else at all. He is surrounded by isolated, frozen tundra, white and frozen and yet somehow still warmer than Heaven. And with endless snow drifts stretching in front of him, he runs.

* * *

* * *

  
  
A week after the Almost-pocalypse, Crowley uncorked a bottle of wine and glanced over at Aziraphale. The angel took the glass of wine and slowly flipped another page of the book he was reading, some ponderous tome that Crowley couldn’t understand holding his attention. A few more sips and Crowley let his limbs splay out all over the couch.  
  
“Do you suppose we ought to check up on Warlock?”  
  
Aziraphale looked up from the book over the frames of his glasses at the demon. “Who?”  
  
“You know. The boy we raised for actual years, mistakenly thinking he was the Anti-Christ?” He took another drink of wine. “Little shit who likes writing naughty words all over public monuments and insulting people over the computer while he shoots things?”  
  
“Yes, I know who he is,” Aziraphale huffed. “I just wasn’t… well, he wasn’t the Anti-Christ. And he’s in America,” he went on, as if the thought was vaguely distasteful.  
  
“Sure. But we were his godfathers. In a fashion.” The glass was empty so Crowley reached for the bottle again. “Don’t you think we should visit from time to time even though he didn’t exactly turn out to the the Prince of Darkness or the Beast at the End of the World?”  
  
Before Aziraphale could answer, a knock came at the door. Aziraphale glanced over. “We’re closed!”  
  
The door sprang open a moment later, but Crowley felt the bust of angelic power before it swung away. Out of habit he scrambled back behind the couch.  
  
“Stay where you are demon.” He froze at the familiar voice then pivoted with his arms spread wide and what he hoped was a rakish grin instead of a nervous one.  
  
“Michael! Wank-wings! I thought I thanked you for the towel already, no need to show up here just to…”  
  
“Be. Quiet.” Uriel appeared beside Michael, flanking her as they stepped in through the door.  
  
“Michael. Uriel.” Aziraphale set the book aside and stood up with a nod at each of them. “I was not expecting company.” His voice was strained. “Indeed, I had not expected to see you for some time.”  
  
Michael walked towards him slowly. “This isn’t a social call. Though you can tell your demon to relax and put down that volume and forget whatever he’s planning to do with it.” She eyed Crowley who had picked up the book Aziraphale had set down. He dropped it immediately and held his hands up. Aziraphale winced at the sound of it hitting the ground.  
  
“Then why are you here?” He was trying to keep his face blank, to keep both of them in his line of sight as the paced around the shop. The two archangels exchanged looks and then turned to Aziraphale.  
  
“We may need your help with something.” She took in a deep breath. “Gabriel has abandoned his post, left Heaven. We need to find him.”  
  
“Left his post? Gabriel?” Aziraphale’s brow creased in confusion.  
  
“What have we got to do with that? We’re retired now. No more of this - no more running errands, getting jerked around on a string. Don’t know why you’d think we could even help.” Crowley made a dismissive gesture at them.  
  
“You seem to have a talent for finding things that don’t want to be found,” Michael said in an even tone. “And as for why - well. Even if we cannot kill the two of you, there are other things we can do. Of course, that would be a lot of bother for something so ultimately insignificant. Surely you can see how much more prudent it would be for you to do one last favor for us so that we can justify leaving you to yourselves. Yes?”  
  
Aziraphale’s hands were clenching at his side and he took a breath to steady himself. “And if we find him, then what?”  
  
“Bring him back to Heaven. Then do not worry about it.” The corner of Uriel’s lips quirked upward. “He was the one who recommended hellfire. You might consider it payment in kind if you like.”  
  
“Couldn’t you just ask God where he’s at? Thought She was supposed to know everything?” Crowley interjected in a bitter voice. “How are we supposed to find him anyway? Just start randomly looking all over the universe?”  
  
“Funny you should say that. These were covering his desk.” Michael held out a box and the two ex-agents neared it carefully before peering inside.  
  
There were prints from the earth observation files, hundreds of them. Some of the both of them - but mostly they were of Crowley, from all different times and places. Sprinkled in amidst the photographs were curled, brown bits. Aziraphale picked one up; it crumbled in his hands.  
  
“Leaves?” He looked at the disintegrating foliage in confusion.  
  
Crowley reached in and grabbed one of the photos, more creased and dog-eared than the others. “Fine,” he snapped and looked up at them from behind his sunglasses. “We’ll look. But you swear, we find him and this is the last thing? You leave us alone for eternity?”  
  
Michael smiled. “You have our word. As archangels.”  
  
They vanished back up to Heaven in pillars of light and Aziraphale turned toward Crowley.  
  
“You agreed to that? But why?”  
  
“I’ll explain on the way.” He tossed the picture he was holding back into the box. “Come on, angel. Pack up. We’re going to space.”  
  
As he went outside to start the Bentley, Aziraphale looked down into the box. On top was a picture of Crowley from nearly the beginning, surrounded by children. He was sitting in some wooden structure, back against the wall, knees pulled into his chest and his head bent. Ringlets of rusty red hair curtained his face, leaving it in shadow, with a hint of yellow, slitted eyes peering out from the darkness.  
  
“Coming, my dear!” Aziraphale called out as he heard the car roar to life outside.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've loved Good Omens as a book for a very long time so I'm very excited to see how much love it's getting now. And of course, I had to write some fic. There are already so many lovely head-canons floating around that I couldn't resist incorporating and playing around with a few of them.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

  
  
Crowley’s knuckles were white as they gripped the Bentley’s steering wheel. He could feel the car vibrating, far more than the engine should if it were running without a demon imagining that it needed to go as fast as possible while bracing itself for sailing into the void. Aziraphale emerged from the bookshop door with the box, locked up behind him, and slid into the passenger seat next to him looking alarmed.  
  
“Crowley, what’s all this about?” He set the box down between his feet. “Space? We don’t need to run away, Crowley, we can simply tell them no and then… deal with whatever they intend to do.”  
  
“Oh yeah?” He started driving, whipping the car through the streets as fast as the machine could go and maybe a bit beyond that. “You think they’re just going to bugger off? Maybe they don’t know what we did, but they could find out and then actually kill us. They could burn your shop again. They could try taking our powers. They’re not especially creative up there but they can be vindictive and that’s almost as good.” He swerved to miss a pedestrian and a lorry at the same time. “Besides. It’s more than that. They’re not going to stop looking. Archangel leaving his post on top of everything else? Looks bad to the lower orders and everybody’s on edge as it is. ‘Sides, the whole Apocalypse was his business and it flopped. Someone needs to take the blame. They’re going to keep searching and if they find him first - you heard them. Kill him or cast him down, either way it won’t be good.”  
  
“But I thought you hated Gabriel! He was willing to kill me, you told me so yourself, using some very colorful language I might add. I believe something about me shutting up and dying? You spat hellfire at him to give him a fright. Why do you care what they do with him? And how does running off to Alpha Centauri help anyway?” He sat back in the seat with a sigh. “And that’s the third red light you’ve driven though. You need to be more careful. You’re going to hit someone again.”  
  
“It’s fine, angel,” he snapped as he narrowly missed a man who made an obscene gesture at them both. “I’ve never hit anyone, she hit me, as you’ll recall. And he’s is a prat! A huge, stupid prat! But he wasn’t…” Crowley sighed. “It’s complicated. It’s a bit of a story, but if we’re going off to the stars I suppose we’ll have the time.”  
  
“I certainly hope so, because I’m utterly lost,” Aziraphale huffed. “And I’d rather not end up in a situation where my bookshop is destroyed again or I’m forced to abandon it forever for no particularly sensible reason, so an explanation would be greatly appreciated.”  
  
The light in front of them turned red and Crowley slammed the breaks. Aziraphale was jerked back into the seat and the box slid forward, knocking against his feet and jarring the contents. Crowley looked down and saw the photograph of him, wearing what he’d worn back in Mesopotamia, not that far from what he’d worn in the beginning.  
  
“I remember who I was before I Fell.”  
  
“Oh.” Aziraphale’s brows climbed up. “I didn’t know. I did not think most demons remembered; I thought you might be annoyed or upset had I asked.”  
  
“Not your fault. Most demons don’t. But I wasn’t just a regular angel.” He twisted his hands around the steering wheel. “And for the longest time, I don’t think anybody else knew. ‘Cept Satan. He thought it was funny, the bastard. Seeing another one of the highest Fall just like him.”  
  
“The highest?” Aziraphale turned from the window to look at him.  
  
Crowley took a breath, even though he didn’t need to breathe at all. “I was Raphael.” His foot pressed down on the gas a little harder. “And I think Gabriel might have realized.”

* * *

* * *

  
  
Gabriel does not get to visit Aziraphale again for a long while. There are so many things that need his attention, so many angels who look to him for direction. Michael and Uriel often remind him that his work is Very Important and that without it, the Adversary might win when the Great Plan finally comes to fruition. Even Sandalphon stresses this to him at one point, though when he does Gabriel lets the smile slide off his face for once and tells him that he _knows_. He knows, he does, deep inside. This is the goal. They need to win. When they they do, Heaven and all her angels can be truly at peace, knowing their enemies are vanquished. He will not have to supervise angels going back and forth for they will all be back in Heaven, doing as they ought. No demons to thwart, no humans to bless and to save. All as it should be.  
  
But sometimes when he has been in his office long enough that he has forgotten how much time has passed, when his corporation is stiff and he rises to stare out of the window over the Heavenly city and creation below, he thinks that none of this would have even been necessary if the rebellion had not happened. There would be no demons to to battle at all, Her humans would not have fallen prey to temptation for they would have been none to tempt them. It could all have been lovely. They would have all been together. He could have spent more time with…  
  
He Fell too, Gabriel reminds himself. Questions were more important than faith in Her or the stars or anything else, anyone else. He Fell like all the rest, screaming and distorted and deformed. He festers down in that hole same as any of them - assuming he hasn’t been killed already.  
  
Something inside him aches at the thought of Raphael, not only Fallen but gone, and he shakes his head furiously to rid himself of the thought.  
  
The death of a demon is something he should celebrate. Truly right and just. Anyway, why should he care for one who found it so easy to leave his side for the sake of mere curiosity? It’s his own fault. It’s all of their faults. He gave him the stars and then took him away from them.  
  
After a particularly long decade, Gabriel voices some of this to Michael. Nothing that would hint he has any doubts about or anger towards the Great Plan. He doesn’t. It’s necessary. He understands this, would not question this. Nor would he suggest that the fate of any particular demon concerns him. Instead he brings up how he hates the fallen for their rebellion and she nods like it’s only natural.  
  
“Better to cut out the cancer early,” she reaches out to clasp his shoulder. “But hold on to that feeling,” she urges. “We need our warriors motivated.” She beams at him and he smiles in return, the same smile he’s gotten so practiced giving to Sandalphon. There’s little in her smile of warmth, but there’s just a bit there and he takes it and holds on to it tightly.

* * *

  
  
The next time that he visits Aziraphale the sensation is even stronger. Love, like a blanket, like a thick fog surrounding him. Does he not sense it? He doesn’t seem to behave differently than any other angel. Perhaps a bit more awkward, with strange predilections for things like books and food. Could he love either of those that much to produce such a feeling? It cannot be a human, he thinks; it has been enough time that any human Aziraphale felt that way about surely would have died in the intervening years. Perhaps several humans? All of humanity?  
  
He does not know what inspires such adoration but he wants the feeling of it near. Even if it is not for him, it is like a perfume that gives its scent to the room and not only the one wearing it. So he pulls some strings and arranges for Aziraphale to be brought back to Heaven, with a medal and everything. He dresses in his finest and, flanked by Sandalphon, goes to give him the good news.  
  
Aziraphale is as he ever was, a bit bashful and awkward but thankful nonetheless and Gabriel is already congratulating himself on a job well done. The feeling is stronger than ever; perhaps some of that wafting about Heaven itself will liven the place up. Not that it isn’t perfect, he reminds himself. But a feeling like the one washing over him isn’t something to be missed.  
  
Strange, he thinks, that Sandalphon makes no remark.  
  
His joy lasts only the space of an hour, though. They go to get clothing - Heaven might be perfect, but the clothing on earth is just a little more real and sumptuous, less loosely draped linen and more neatly tailored velvet waistcoats. It feels good against his corporation and he feels good being seen in it. While he is getting fitted, he overhears the adversary particular to Aziraphale - Crowley he is called - celebrating Aziraphale’s recall into Heaven. A cold, tight ball forms in the pit of Gabriel’s stomach. If he takes Aziraphale away from his duties, perhaps the next angel will not be so successful. He had dangled the possibility of Michael coming down, but that is unlikely; she will not wish to leave her battalions.  
  
The Great Plan comes first, always and in everything. He cannot chance it to failure. So instead, he goes back to Aziraphale and lets him know that he will be staying. The love he feels in and around the angel almost seems stifling, now that he knows it will remain on earth with Aziraphale. He gives orders followed up with a few quick pleasantries and then he retreats with Sandalphon, back to his office and a stack of paperwork for angels requesting new corporations.  
  
Once he is in Heaven, the sensation lasts a little longer but inevitably fades again. This time, though, there is something comfortable and familiar about it, how that he has been around it longer and it has grown over time. It is like a word he cannot remember or a name he cannot recall, something that dances just out of his reach the more that he tries to grasp it. Then it fades completely and he sighs, looking down at a report from an angel explaining how she managed to get corporation burnt to death trying to save a church in Copenhagen.  
  
Back to work then. All in service of the Great Plan. It cannot be too long now, he reminds himself, and it cheers him a little after the day’s disappointment

* * *

  
  
He does not see Aziraphale again until he comes to deliver the good news of the Anti-Christ’s arrival on earth. He finds the angel eating raw fish, of all things, but his confusion cannot dampen his excitement over letting the angel know that finally, _finally_ events are underway, the Great Plan is coming to fruition, and the end is indeed nigh. Aziraphale’s enthusiasm seems more tempered than his own, although at first he does not doubt that Aziraphale knows, as he does, that this is the end that must come. Though his fond attempts to turn the Anti-Christ child towards the light are, as he tells the angel, admirable, he knows they will fail.  
  
Or. At least that’s what he thinks at first.  
  
Aziraphale continues to be reluctant, to be _soft_ , and it gradually dawns on Gabriel that this might be something more than a case of nerves, of an angel too long away from Heaven worrying about trivial matters like what will happen to the earth. The way he talks about the demon Crowley is effusive and for the first time Gabriel begins to see how Aziraphale lights up when he speaks of him. He does not need the other angels to point out that it’s worrying.  
  
As Armageddon approaches, he goes for a run to clear his mind. Why not? One last chance to take a look around before it all goes up in flames. Aziraphale approaches him again and Gabriel does his best one more time to emphasize the necessity of the Great Plan. They will win and then everything is going to be right again. He shouldn’t even have to explain why this is a good thing, he thinks in frustration. Doesn’t Aziraphale want that? Why wouldn’t any angel to be rid of this paltry little planet and the business of collecting souls, keeping score lest the other side get ahead? To go back to being with the host? To doing all of the things that they did before, the things that brought them so much joy in the very Beginning before they had to start playing this game? Return to the business of creating other wonders? But Aziraphale still seems uncertain and unmoved.  
  
The whole affair is enough to rouse the suspicions of the other angels and Michael seeks out pictures from the observation files, damning evidence of what Aziraphale has been up to during all of those years on earth. At first he feels a twinge of fear and tries to deny even the possibility. There has to be another explanation. But Michael clearly does not believe that and his stomach twists - does Michael blame him for whatever fraternizing Aziraphale may have been doing? The angel was under his command, after all. But as he looks at the pictures in front of him, Aziraphale side by side with the demon Crowley, other thoughts begin to come up. It occurs to him that he’s never really seen the demon before. He’d heard him the one time, a snarling voice in an alleyway, but never run into him directly. In all these years, it hadn’t seemed important. One demon was much like another - same foul presence, same wiles, same temptations.  
  
But when he looks at Crowley, there’s something familiar in the shape of his jaw and the way he holds himself. That’s when Michael suggests pursuing the matter through back channels.  
  
Back channels?  
  
He didn’t know there were back channels. Michael did not tell him. How could there be? Wouldn’t that mean approaching demons, their eternal adversaries? How could Heaven begin to trust them? Doesn’t it go against the Great Plan to consort with them if not seeking to strike them down or thwart them?  
  
Though he knows that questions are a dangerous business, before he can stop his train of thought he wonders what else Michael has not seen fit to share. Silent, secretive Michael giving her advice with pointed looks, never saying what she means. Counting on him to understand all that goes unsaid, letting him find his way in silence the rest of the time.  
  
It feels like he is tugging at a thread and his body cannot be still. He goes to the floor where the observation files are kept, enlisting the help of the bookkeeping angel there whose name he does not know - why would he? What cause had he to look into such matters? He requests the history of the demon Crowley and the angel brings back a box of photographs, marked with places, dates, and timestamps on the back. Gabriel hustles back to his office with them and flips through the sheaf, looking back and back and back. He sees him doing temptations, from small paltry things that scarcely count as mischief to large scale inconveniences. But there are unexpected revelations in there. He always seems to be in time to save Aziraphale from a variety of troubles and discorporations. Hardly demonic at all, saving an angel over and over. He does minor miracles, miracles Gabriel can remember Aziraphale reporting and taking the credit for doing.  
  
Then at the very beginning, he finds a picture of the demon in the bottom of a curved wooden room, what he realizes after a moment is a massive boat. He looks at the time and place marked and realizes it was during the Flood. There are children all around him. Not Noah’s. Others. Others who should have died in the course of God’s ineffable will.  
  
Crowley’s hair was longer back then and it is just there, right on the tip of the tongue. His eyes are shining in the darkness and then, for no clear reason, Gabriel finds himself thinking of the love that always seemed to be blanketing Aziraphale, why it felt so familiar, why the demon’s face makes him think of memories on the very edges of his recollection. It slides into place and the thread is yanked again.  
  
“Raphael,” he whispers to the empty room.

* * *

  
  
Gabriel has been sitting in his chair, in the same position, staring at the same photograph for hours.  
  
All this time.  
  
All this time Raphael was right there. All this time he was on earth. All this time he still remembered mercy. He still remembered love.  
  
Did Michael know? Did Uriel? Did God?

Of course God did. She knew everything.  
  
Nobody told him. He never knew demons could remember anything of their past selves. He never knew they could hold on to a little bit of what had made them angels to begin with.  
  
Crowley was Raphael. And Raphael still loved.  
  
He loved human children who were afraid as the waters rose.  
  
He loved humans who were ill and cried out as sickness and death took those around them.  
  
He loved a soft, cowardly Principality who was more enamored of earth than with his own brethren.  
  
He did not love Gabriel. Not anymore.  
  
Never once did he approach him.  
  
The thread pulls and pulls, unraveling stitch by stitch.  
  
Angels are made for love. To love everything. All that She created.  
  
But not demons. It is fine to hate demons. There are outside of Her grace. Unforgivable.  
  
Which is good. Otherwise Gabriel might question whether the tight, boiling heat that fills his chest is right.  
  
He never even bothered. All that time they spent together in the Beginning. Not once.  
  
It made sense when he thought demons were incapable of anything resembling a virtue. But he wasn’t. He just didn’t love him.  
  
Who does?  
  
He has tried so hard all these years to follow the Great Plan. To play his role. His thoughts scatter like grain thrown on dry dirt.  
  
Michael and her back channels, secret and stern.  
  
Uriel and her alabaster walls, high and unassailable.  
  
Sandalphon and his smirking and smiting, obsequious and sycophantic.  
  
Nothing from any of them ever felt like what he felt in that small, cramped bookshop.  
  
None of that has ever been for him.  
  
It’s fine. It is. He still has Her divine love. Her grace. Her constant, distant, disinterested, silent affection.  
  
Armageddon will still continue. Crowley will burn. He will not have to think about him anymore.  
  
He will perish like demons should, like all demons will, like those frightened children he held in his arms and carried away from the flood were meant to.  
  
Then Heaven will be purified.  
  
Then, if nothing else, he will have the stars again.  
  
He gathers up the photos and throws them into the box. All except the picture of Crowley and the children. Keeps it out, holds it until it creases, dog-ears the corners with twitching fingers. Looks at hair in curls, like an echo, like mockery.

* * *

  
  
Armageddon doesn’t happen. The Anti-Christ is the one who stops it, insisting that Satan isn’t his father, but Gabriel knows who is really at fault. He know who to blame for the fact that they will all have to continue this ridiculous charade, that he will remain right where he’s at, doing as he’s always done. Almost always done. Everything he worked for with the Great Plan is gone and it is because of them.  
  
They make a deal with Downstairs. Why not? The Great Plan is in shambles; She alone knows what is supposed to happen now. But he can have this. He can let the demons take Crowley to do with as they see fit and he can take Aziraphale, the principality Raphael found so deserving of his attention and affection, and he can see him burn.  
  
But that doesn’t happen either. Aziraphale prattles on and on about how they are angels and do not do such things. Talks about better occasions. Gabriel does not want to hear it. None of it. He tells him to shut his mouth, to go ahead and die, because that’s the only thing he thinks will staunch what feels like a wound in his chest. Then, hate radiating from him despite his ever polite features, Aziraphale steps into the flame and does not burn. He spits fire at them and Uriel, in disbelief, asks what he is.  
  
Gabriel doesn’t know. Doesn’t even care. Everything he has tried has failed.  
  
Michael returns from far below to let them know that Crowley bathed in the holy water but it did not destroy him. Somehow that feels like even less of a surprise than Aziraphales survival. Gabriel wonders if that is a sign that he was indeed more Raphael than anything else, but it hardly signifies.  
  
He is in every way a failure.  
  
He goes to his office and locks the door. The pictures are still there sitting on his desk.

* * *

  
  
The thread feels completely loose now, the fabric it was holding in place slipping out, fraying at the edges.  
  
“I only ever did as I was told!” He tilts his head and screams at the ceiling. His voice echoes in the empty room; nobody responds.  
  
Wasn’t that what he was supposed to do? Adhere to the Great Plan, obey Her in all things?  
  
Perhaps the Great Plan wasn’t Her plan.  
  
But then how could the Ineffable Plan have even happened if he didn’t follow the Great Plan?  
  
Was all of this supposed to happen?  
  
What was he supposed to do? To fail? Was it ordained from the start?  
  
Did it matter what he even did?  
  
Would it all become part of the plan anyway?  
  
Is he supposed to feel what he feels now, like knives in his chest?  
  
Was Raphael right all along? If he was right, why was he cast down to suffer?  
  
_Why did you create them to suffer, My Lord?_  
  
He runs his fingers over the surface of the photo. Raphael and the children. Welcoming them to him. Protecting them.  
  
He wished to see Raphael die.  
  
He felt Raphael’s love for someone else and it burned like an ember that he did not have that.  
  
Did he do the right thing?  
  
Is there even a right thing to do?  
  
Is he going to Fall?  
  
All he has are endless questions. He knows what comes of questions.  
  
Maybe that is what She wants. His pain, his uncertainty, his failure, his demise. Maybe it’s all part of Her unknowable scheme. If it is, it would be fruitless to fight it. She is Almighty.  
  
Gabriel rises from his desk and goes to the cabinets. He looks at the laurels from years gone by. Fragrant olive leaves wound into crowns. He can still imagine the cheers of the crowd when he won races, when he threw his opponents down and felt them submit beneath him. The Grecian sunlight made his oiled body shine like he was covered in light. One by one he takes them out, touches each in turn. Smiles at the memories.  
  
He sets them all on his desk and with a gesture they wither.  
  
Into dust you shall return.  
  
He steps away from his desk and out into the hallway. It is empty. Not even Sandalphon is lurking. He takes the elevator up, to the very roof, and then steps over to the edge.  
  
It’s bright above him. He can’t see the stars. But he knows they’re there. With a thought, his wings spring out and he rises and flies.  
  
He goes back to the beginning.

* * *

* * *

  
  
“Raphael?” Aziraphale looked taken aback. “The archangel Raphael?”  
  
“They only used each name once, angel, you know that. No other Raphael up there.” He made a sharp turn, taking them farther and farther away from the city center. “So. I knew Gabriel from way back. We were some of the first created.” He smiled a little as a memory came to mind. “We helped make the stars together. I showed him how.” And he told him of the nebulae they'd made together, the stars they'd shaped and formed hand in hand. Raphael had moved on, gone back to learn more of healing. But Gabriel had lingered out where the stars were even after they had finished.  
  
“And you think that’s where he’s gone? Why go there now?”  
  
“It’s the best guess that I have,” Crowley shrugged. “That picture. I looked more back then like I did when I was in Heaven. And it was hard breaking the habit of trying to save people. Guess I never really broke it at all,” he admitted, “if you want to count recent events. So he figured it out and the Great Blasted Plan he’s been working on all this time went tits up. Maybe he needed some room to think. It’s all I’ve got. I don’t know where else he’d go that Michael and that lot couldn’t find him.”  
  
“You created the stars together?” Aziraphale’s soft voice sounded in awe. “I never realized. Is that why you wanted to go there so badly?”  
  
“I wanted to go anywhere I thought we could escape from a planet-wide cataclysm. But yeah. Might’ve been part of it.” He sped past cars like their were scarcely moving as they put the city behind them. “Go back after all this time. See how they were doing.”  
  
“I never even knew you knew Gabriel.” He reached for the image. “Other than as my boss.”  
  
“It was a long time ago,” Crowley said quietly. “Lots of things changed since then. I Fell, he didn’t. I was on earth, he was in Heaven. I didn’t see him for ages. When I did he wasn’t the same. Then again, neither was I.” The sky was beginning to darken as the day slipped into twilight. A thick fog rolled in on the mostly deserted road and somehow, miraculously, nobody saw an antiquated car rise into the sky.  
  
“You cared for him,” Aziraphale said as they escaped the grip of gravity; it wasn’t a question.  
  
“I did. Yeah.” He snapped his fingers and the Bentley started moving fast enough that the pinpricks of light around them blurred, though it never came within reach of any planet or asteroid. For a long time, Crowley sat quietly, looking at the stars go by. It wasn’t until they were well out of earth’s solar system that he spoke again. “Angel? What do you suppose would have happened if Warlock, not Adam, _had_ been the Anti-Christ?”  
  
“Goodness knows. Nothing good, probably. He’s a alright for a child. But awfully fond of mayhem, isn’t he? Might have thought it was all a game.”  
  
“His dad was shit. But we didn’t do any better with him, did we?” The Bentley began slowing down as it came closer and closer to one particular nebula. A gray, stony planetoid floated nearby and Crowley brought the Bentley down. It had been thousands of years, but he hadn’t forgotten the first time he’d stood on one particularly distinct outcropping. Some distance in front of them a figure turned around as the sound of the engine died and the doors slammed behind them.  
  
“Crowley!” Gabriel clasped his hands together in front of him and smiled. “And Aziraphale too. I suppose this counts as a better occasion?” His gaze shifted back over to Crowley. “You remember. Don’t you.”  
  
Crowley stepped towards him. As he grew near he could see Gabriel’s eyes shining, luminous in the dark. Vast cloudy depths that glowed purple and churned like there was a storm behind them.  
  
“Yessss. I remember. Brother.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note of warning. I'll be updating the tags one it's published, but next chapter will contain some triggers including talk of suicide.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning to any who might be concerned - this chapter includes discussion of suicide, suicidal tendencies, and suicide ideation by some of the characters. Tags have been updated, but this is one more warning for any readers wishing to avoid these subjects.

* * *

When Gabriel first reaches space, it’s blessedly quiet and isolated. It’s not the quiet of Heaven that always thrums with celestial energy, a busy sort of quiet that reminds one there are things that need doing and perhaps you should go about your business. This is a deep quiet, like an ocean he could sink beneath and never come up.

Perhaps he will do exactly that.

He stands where he once stood with Raphael and thinks about his brother. He loved him but he tried to kill him. He knew he was a demon but he saw him trying to save others. He felt his love. He misses it. He hates it. He covets it. He thinks about Michael who told him _no questions_ but then had back channels. He thinks about Uriel who built a roof over the Heavens, offices that sealed away the stars. He tries not to think of Sandalphon. Finally, he thinks of himself, so confident in the Great Plan, so sure he was doing what was right.

All of his thoughts start to crowd in on one another so he lets his suit vanish and instead clothes himself in gray exercise clothing and starts to run. One foot in front of the other, forward and forward. There is scarcely any atmosphere and none that a human could breathe, but he goes through the motions anyway and miracles oxygen into his lungs. He feels his muscles start to burn.

Angels are supposed to love. And he does, somewhere beneath everything else. But he feels so many other things, uglier things. They boil up inside of him, overflow like a river flooding its banks. He cannot hold them back.

He runs faster, until his feet start to blister and ache. He doesn’t miracle those away. He goes until his corporation refuses to go further. Then he miracles himself back to the starting point and begins again, in a different direction each time.

He isn’t aware of how much time has passed when he finally hears the car behind him during one of his rests. But he doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is. He changes back into his suit. Best face forward.

* * *

* * *

“Yessss. I remember. Brother.”

“Excellent. You see, I would have felt rather foolish if I resented you for something you weren’t even aware of,” he said in the same cheerful tone he’d greeted them with. He spread his hands wide. “But you do remember! And you’re here. Perfect.”

“What are you doing here?” Crowley came nearer, his sinuous walk creeping up little by little.

“Running. Lots of running. I like running,” he said with a grin that made his cheeks stretch, gesturing towards the footprints that went in all directions. “Clears my mind. Can’t have questions if your mind is clear.” He came over to Crowley and put both his hands on the demon’s shoulders, shook him a little. “But I can’t run forever, can I? See, the real question is, why are _you_ here? You two made it perfectly clear you wanted nothing to do with Heaven and Hell. And I don’t think you came here just to visit the stars.”

“Michael and Uriel showed up at our doorstep,” Crowley admitted. “Said you’d abandoned your post. Thought we might be able to find you, made a few vague threats, then vanished back upstairs. Business as usual really.”

“As expected.” He patted Crowley’s shoulder and took a step back. “It’s funny. You don’t even lie, like a demon would. And I’m well-versed in how Heaven works. If you don’t bring me back, they’ll come for me. I know they will. So.” He steepled his hands and pressed his index fingers against his lips. “I know this is all a bit untoward. I know you’re not really my brother anymore and you don’t love me any longer. But you still have the mercy you were made with inside of you, don’t you, Raphael? I’ve seen it. In all those pictures from the observation files.” He turned a little and looked out to the nebula, its swirling colors reflected in his eyes. “I’ll turn around and then you summon a pillar of hellfire.”

For a second Crowley’s jaw hung open. “What?”

“It will be fine!” His voice was bright and confident, like he had just suggested they go on an afternoon drive or have a picnic in the park. “If Michael or Uriel find me, things will go much worse. And anyway, I wanted to hurt you. Hurt your angel. You could even consider this revenge, if you like. Do to me what I tried to do to Aziraphale. I was - how did you put it Aziraphale, when the others confronted you on earth about your fraternizing? A bad angel. Surprised I haven’t Fallen already, but that’s probably coming. Maybe. Who can say? Only She can cast us down and She doesn’t seem to be talking. Though if it happens, I suppose I deserve that too. But isn’t that the essence of mercy? To bestow a kindness on one who doesn’t deserve it?”

“Have you lossssst your mind?” Crowley ripped off his sunglasses. His eyes were full yellow and slitted, glowing in the light of the nebula.

“No. No, I’m thinking clearly now.” His head jerked up and down in sharp nods. “You were right. You were right about everything. She plays games with the universe. I can’t win. I don’t even understand how to play. I thought I knew. Six thousand years, I thought I understood what I was supposed to do. Don’t ask questions. Don’t Fall. Follow the Great Plan. Do your duty, receive your reward. You disobeyed all of that. But here you are. With the life on earth you wanted, with the angel that you love.” Behind them both, Aziraphale’s eyes widened.

Gabriel crossed his arms behind his back and turned back around to face Crowley. “I would have done it myself, but everything I came up with would only discorporate me and send me back. It has to be hellfire, I think. Which is why it’s lucky you arrived.” He came up to him, shoulder to shoulder, leaning in a little and the smile falling from his face. “Can you let me have this? Can you let my final moments be here with my stars instead of falling into the pit or getting sequestered again in whatever white-walled room they shove me into?” He looked down and shook his head. “I see now that it’s all just a game. And I don’t want to be shuffled to one side of the board or the other. I want to be taken off the board.”

For a long moment, Crowley stared at him. Aziraphale leaned against the car, hands twisting nervously together. “Gabriel, I don’t think that…”

“You ssssssssselfish git!” Crowley snarled and surged forward to grab him by the lapels, throwing the angel’s head back. “You feel guilty now so that’s it? You have questions but no answers, so you demand I help you commit sssssuicide?” He shoved him away and stepped back. “I won’t. I refuse.”

Gabriel’s expression went from mild surprise at Crowley’s aggression to crumpled disappointment. “You’re going to drag me back then?” He hesitated. “I could fight you.”

“No. I’m not doing that. And I don’t think you’re doing that either,” he snapped and paced back to the car before turning on his heel and stalking back towards Gabriel. “Ssssstupid. You’re so stupid, do you know that?”

Gabriel paused. “Yes.” He nodded. “Otherwise I would understand things better.”

“Argh!” Crowley stomped to the side and kicked a rock. “That’s not… do you know how infuriating you are?”

“My dear.” Aziraphale approached and gently touched his arm. “I don’t think that’s helping.”

“If you won’t get rid of me and you aren’t here to bring me back to Heaven, why did you come?” Gabriel looked them over with a hint of suspicion. “Just to laugh?”

“Are either of us laughing?” Crowley snapped. “I can’t… I’m not going to be able to do this sober.” A bottle of wine appeared in his hands. “How would you feel about getting drunk?”

“I don’t eat,” Gabriel protested.

“Well this isn’t eating, it’s drinking. You want me to go asking for favors, you can do this. With everything else that’s happened, you think anybody is going go care about you sssssssullying your corporation?”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale scolded. “How is getting drunk going to help matters either?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll be drunk, so at least it won’t seem so bad.” He beckoned towards Gabriel. “Come on then.” A snap and the cork flew out of the bottle. “Take it.”

Still looking like he suspected a trick, Gabriel came up to him, took the bottle, and began to swallow it down. Crowley smiled and miracled another bottle for himself. “What do you want Aziraphale? Red or white?”

Aziraphale huffed. “I am not condoning this! Somebody needs to maintain a level head even if the two of you insist on behaving so, so… irresponsibly!”

* * *

Half an hour later, the three occult beings were leaned up against the rock formation. Gabriel had said nothing, but his eyes were rather red. Crowley sat in the middle, shoulder to shoulder with Aziraphale. Aziraphale was tapping the side of his bottle in distraction. Other bottles littered the ground in front of them. Gabriel pressed a hand to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut.

“My stomach hurts. Was this supposed to help?”

“Always helpsssss me when I’ve got thoughts and feelings that I don’t want to feel or think about,” Crowley said brightly, waving a half-empty bottle towards Gabriel. “How’s it working for you?”

The archangel folded over and let his head rest on his knees. “I feel like my stomach wants to discorporate itself. “

“But you’re thinking less about dying in a pillar of fire, yeah?”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale dragged a hand over his face. “We… you two should talk. Before you’re _too_ drunk.”

“Yeah. Yeah, OK.” He set the bottle down. “So. To start. You understand why I don’t want to do thisssss?”

Gabriel curled in on himself. “Because I tried to get Aziraphale killed and I deserve to suffer.”

“Because you’re ssssstill my fucking brother and I don’t want to kill you!”

“You’ve killed others. You killed a demon. Hell mentioned it was on your list of charges.”

“He was trying to kill me at the time. And he wasn’t… he was a co-worker at best. I didn’t even like him.” He exhaled. “And She knows we haven’t been on good terms, or any terms really, for millennia. But it’s not that easy to forget you and the time we spent. You know. Before.”

There was a long silence that stretched while Crowley finished off the bottle he was holding and conjured another. Gabriel reached for it and lifted his head up, drinking more before responding.

“I didn’t even know it was you. I thought you were just some demon Aziraphale kept running into over the years. I thought maybe _you_ had died. Or didn’t remember. I didn’t want to find you and realize you were like all the other Fallen. I didn’t want to see.”

“When’d you figure it out?”

“Right before Armageddon was supposed to happen. Michael was suspicious of some of Aziraphale’s remarks and found photos of the two of you together. You looked familiar. I dug deeper.” He glanced sideways at Crowley. “Mesopotamia. Those children. You saved them from the flood.”

“They were kidssssss.” Crowley glared at the bottle he was holding. “They didn’t even do anything. They were suppossssed to die for some plan? Because God got _tetchy_?”

“Yes!” Gabriel cried out. “No! I don’t… It was the Great Plan! Her reasons are unknowable!”

“Ineffable?” Crowley sneered. “Aziraphale said that too. At the time. _Can’t judge the Almighty_ ,” he mimicked. “It’s a load of bollocksssss. But at least he realized that.”

“To be fair, my dear - it took me a long time to agree to oppose the Great Plan.” He touched Crowley’s arm. “And I was on earth. I had you.”

“You gave your sword away first thing because you thought they would be cold!”

“That’s where your sword went?” Gabriel looked over, seemingly hurt. “You lied to me about that?”

“We are not here to talk about what I did with my flaming sword!” Aziraphale huffed. “It’s not important!”

“Aziraphale cared. Had doubts. But you. Didn’t you see what was happening?” Crowley accused. “The ssssssuffering, the pain, the dying - you watched it all unfold and nodded and thought it was alright? It was fine? But you never asked questions, did you. No, questions were for the bad angels.”

“They were!” Gabriel drew his legs in more tightly to himself. “They’re why you Fell! Michael told me. Too many questions. You didn’t have to ask so many questions, but you did and you left and you Fell! There was so much screaming and burning… I didn’t want to Fall!”

“Michael’s a wanker! Don’t listen to Michael!”

“Who else was I supposed to listen to!”

“Yourssssself! Your own mind! You think think that I wanted to Fall? That asking why humanity had to suffer was the ssssssame as Lucifer and his lot thinking they should be on top instead? I didn’t mean to Fall! And before you tell me that you didn’t know, you never asked or questioned that either! You just asssssssumed that we were all the same lot, all wrong for what we did.”

“Because you were! I thought you were.” He let the bottle drop and roll away from him, spilling dark red wine into the dirt. “I was told. I was afraid.”

“Yeah. Well. So was I, but I didn’t get any choicesssssss, I just had to deal with it.” Bitterness infused his voice and he swallowed it down with more wine.

Gabriel dragged a hand over his face. “…I’m sorry.”

“Nothing you could have done, anyway.” Crowley tilted his head back against the rock. “Weren’t even there. She was the one who threw me out. All part of the Great Fucking Pox-Ridden Plan. Who you should be apologizing to is Aziraphale for being such an utter prick to him.”

“Oh, I don’t really…” Aziraphale started to demur.

“He tried to kill you!”Crowley cut off the other angel.

“There is that,” Aziraphale admitted with a look at Gabriel.

Gabriel straightened his legs and and unbuttoned his jacket. “You were a traitor. We couldn’t make you Fall. But we had to do _something_.”

“Yeah? That why you to him to shut up and die with a ssssmile on your face? Because you just needed to take care of businessss?”

He dragged a finger through the dirt, tracing out aimless patterns. “I did it out of anger,” he confessed. “I gave up everything to see the Great Plan through and you ruined it. And you…” His eyes met Aziraphale’s. “Raphael loves you. I was jealous. Am jealous. You got to do whatever you wanted, you had love, and I was going to be stuck in Heaven forever, dealing with paperwork. No stars in Heaven. Can’t even see them.”

“Aziraphale didn’t do that to you! It’s not his fault!” Crowley twisted around and slid up to Gabriel prodding him in the chest. “You can make your own choices! You’re almossst there now, you’ve already walked away! All you ever had to do was start thinking for yourself and living how you wanted!”

Gabriel’s eyes focused on him. “Angels don’t _do_ that. I’ve abandoned my duty to even be here. I could have Fallen.”

“Might have,” Crowley admitted. “It hurts if it happens. But you get used to it.” He reached out and touched his shoulder. “Nobody was there when I Fell; they were all too focused on their own pain. But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, if you had someone there to pick you up.”

Gabriel’s mouth hung open a second; Crowley’s hand was warm where it touched him and he leaned a ltitle in that direction. But then he jerked away. “I don’t want to Fall! It isn’t much but I can still feel Her, still feel Her grace. I don’t want to lose that!” He shuddered. “Maybe it’s already all too late for that anyway. I don’t know.”

Crowley leaned away and materialized yet another bottle, opening it with an agitated gesture. “You do know you’re unhappy now. You wouldn’t be asking me to burn you up if you weren’t unhappy. What’s the worst that could happen, if you do what we did and tell everybody to sod off?”

Gabriel stopped to consider. “I don’t know if that’s an option for me at this point. Too late for that. We couldn’t kill the two of you. Whatever you have become, you were immune.” He was still looking down and didn’t see Crowley and Aziraphale exchange glances. “But I’ll burn. Or Fall. Something else maybe. Sandalphon’s probably come up with ideas. I thought if it was you doing it, you might make it quick and let me think of something else while it happened. That there was enough of Raphael left to be merciful.”

“I’m not Raphael anymore,” he snapped, though his voice wavered as he said it. “And if I wasn’t going to be merciful? If I was worse?”

“Then at least I would be punished by someone that I actually wronged. Instead of those I only ever tried to obey and please.”

Silence grew between them and Gabriel squirmed. His face flushed and he shrugged off the suit jacket he always wore, letting it fall to the dust. “Does alcohol always make you feel so hot?”

“Sometimes, yeah. Know what’s really fucked about all this?” He gulped down more wine. “Mom throws out one kid. The other gets to stay but is terrified to get tossed out too. Doesn’t talk to anybody or show up to anything. And instead of being mad at Her, we’re mad at each other.”

“She’s still our mother. The only mother we have,” Gabriel protested. “Our God.”

“You’ve seen how She’s treated everything! The humans, me, you! Her own blasted Son!” He gestured between them. “Look at what’s happened to us! Is whatever you feel worth it?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.” His whole body sagged.

Crowley sighed. “For whatever it’s worth. I didn’t mean to hurt you. When I Fell, the pain took up everything. I was just trying to survive. By the time I’d sorted myself out and saw you again, you didn’t even look like you anymore. Figured you’d moved on. Not supposed to fraternize and all that anyway. Could cause trouble.”

“No. I’m sorry.” His voice was husky. “I was a coward. You were my brother. I should have tried to find you. I should have been happy to see you when I finally did. I’m selfish and jealous. I’m a rotten brother.”

“Kind of. But look who you had for role models.” Crowley smirked and edged a little nearer. “Not so bad to be selfish anyway. He’s selfish.” He pointed a wobbly finger at Aziraphale.

“I beg your pardon!” Aziraphale roused himself and gave Crowley an affronted glare.

“You stopped the Apocalypse because you like your bloody Wilde first editions and wanted to keep eating sushi and fancy lunches!” He accused. “And maybe that was the right thing! Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing to do.” He drained the rest of the wine. “Might not be so terrible to be a little selfish after all, so long as you’re not going around killing people because of it.”

Gabriel flushed and leaned forward to look at Aziraphale. “I always thought you were strange. For an angel. I didn’t understand. Not well. But now.” He exhaled heavily and looked up at the sky. “I can see the attachment. And I don’t know what’s the right thing to do, without a Plan to follow.”

“Fuck the Plan,” Crowley urged. “There’s no more Plan. Did the Plan ever even make you happy?”

“It made me feel safe.” Gabriel leaned back and looked at him. “It gave me direction.”

“Well, that’s not the same thing, now is it.”

“I suppose not.” He pressed his palms to his eyes, rubbed them against his forehead. “I don’t know how you manage. Thinking of things all the time. Trying to make decisions.”

“Sometimes poorly and by making some pretty bad ones along the way,” Crowley admitted. “But you said yourself. Look where it got us. There was pain. But it wasn’t so bad in the end. And anyway, it should be easier when there’s someone else to help you through it.”

“Someone else?” He let his hands fall away and looked at Crowley.

“Come on. I know thinking’s hard for you. But don’t be daft.”

He came near enough for his shoulder to nudge against Gabriel’s. A feeling came over the angel - like a blanket settling across his shoulders, its warmth sinking in through his skin all the way to his core. The pupils of his eyes grew wide, dilated until the purple was only at the edges.

“Oh,” he whispered. He brought his hands up to cover his face and began to weep.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

The moment their shoulders touched, Crowley relaxed against his brother and looked at him like had when they’d made the nebula before them. A rush of familiar warmth flooded into Gabriel and his limbs spasmed. His eyes widened and he gasped; tears spilled out of his violet eyes until they were red and bloodshot. He opened his mouth but only strained sounds came out. His whole corporation trembled and he leaned into Crowley.  
  
As he drew closer, a shiver ran through Crowley as well. Aziraphale pressed a hand to his own chest as a reciprocating wave of affection, built from both of them, crashed over his senses.  
  
Making a high-pitched noise, Gabriel tilted forward and his wings suddenly burst from his back, flapping and nearly hitting Crowley back into the rocks. He ducked beneath them and pressed himself into Gabriel’s side, back cushioned by the wing that now reflexively curled around him. Gabriel turned a little, angling his body closer, still shaking with choked off sobs. Time passed, though none of them were aware of how much, until finally the sobs subsided into little hitching sounds.   
  
“You know, this would have been much easier with your previous shape.” Crowley readjusted himself as his limbs started going stiff, bringing one hand up around his neck to stroke at Gabriel’s clipped hair, letting his fingers scratch a little at his scalp. The other stroked the curve of his wing, carding through the long primary feathers. What had started off as Gabriel leaning against Crowley while Aziraphale had looked stricken had morphed into Gabriel’s face mashed into Crowley’s clavicle, his body awkwardly half draped over Crowley’s, blanketed by his wings. All the while Aziraphale stared very determinedly at the nebula and tried to pretend he hadn’t seen his boss making sobbing, guttural noises into his boyfriend’s collar.  
  
Gabriel looked up and shuddered as he gulped in air. “I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes to concentrate and retracted his wings then shifted his weight and sat up, leaning against the rock instead. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just been so long. I thought I had forgotten. I didn’t know I could feel like that.” He scrubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands, smearing away the tears. “You liked my other shape better, didn’t you.”  
  
“I didn’t say that.” With the weight lifted, Crowley stretched a little. “It’s just… different. Taller for one. Broader. What made you change it?”  
  
“I thought it would get the other angels to take me more seriously.” Crowley looked at him with a lifted brow. “…Michael may have suggested I consider it.” He looked down at his hands. “But. I like this body. It moves very well. It was strange at first but now I think it fits. And it has been very good for running.”  
  
“Running? Like marathons?” Crowley looked at him in surprised. “Where you run around the street wearing pieces of paper?”  
  
“Paper? No, I don’t remember any paper. We were usually naked. And we mostly ran inside the stadium.” He unbuttoned the cuffs of his sleeve and rolled them up as Aziraphale made a sputtering noise.  
  
“Naked? Where were you running, Ancient Greece?”  
  
Gabriel nodded. “Yes, that was before things got… busy. I had more time back then. And they had so many sports, it was all very popular.” He leaned against the wall, smiling. “It was fun.”  
  
“You ran races in ancient Greece?” Crowley echoed again.  
  
“Oh yes. And wrestled. I was very good at the wrestling, although I liked the races more. You wouldn’t believe how easy it can be to force a human body into submission!” The other two exchange looks.  
  
“Didn’t think forcing people into submission was something angels were supposed to do,” Crowley drawled.  
  
“It was only sport,” Gabriel said with a shrug. “That could not be a sin. Or at least I didn’t think so, for a time. I stopped before anybody found out,” he admitted. “She must have known of course, but She never said anything to me one way or another about it.”  
  
“And you didn’t do any _wrestling_ or _submitting_ afterward?” The demon smirked. “Outside of competition?”  
  
Gabriel looked at him and tilted his head. “No, although some of the other competitors did ask me if I wanted to join them in such things outside of the stadia. But I had no need to train beyond my own efforts. Some of them did seem to take it rather hard, but I didn’t want to interact with the humans too much or raise any suspicions.”  
  
Crowley burst out laughing and Gabriel looked at him in confusion. “Efforts! Sssssorry… I jussssst… Angel!” He gasped at Aziraphale. “Explain it!”  
  
The other angel went bright red and coughed a little. “Well. I wasn’t there. Obviously I can’t know how they might have… propositioned you. But. If you were all naked. And they wanted to. Erm. Wrestle with you more. As it were. Gabriel. What it sounds like… I think they might have…”  
  
“They wanted to fuck you!” Crowley interrupted in between gasps.  
  
“What, the humans?” Gabriel went red then as well. “Why would they want to do that?”  
  
“I dunno, maybe because you were six foot tall and built like Adonisssss! I assume you were actually making an effort? Were you all ssssslathered in oil too?”  
  
“I had to make an effort or they would have noticed something was wrong! And of course I put on oil, it was traditional!” Gabriel looked increasingly distressed, so Aziraphale made his way over to his other side and patted his arm while Crowley was nearly rolling in the dirt and laughing so hard he had to stop breathing.  
  
“Never mind his teasing, I’m sure you were quite skilled.”  
  
“I was extremely good! I won many competitions, I was awarded all sorts of prizes. Medals and laurels, amphorae, even a statue of my form on occasion to commemorate the victory.”  
  
Aziraphale’s eyes lit up as a connection fired in his brain. “The leaves! I was wondering about those. There were dried leaves in the box we got from the other archangels. Said it was from your desk. I understood the photos but I was puzzled by the leaves. Were those your laurels?”  
  
Gabriel nodded sadly. “They were the one thing that I saved. I kept them fresh. Until I didn’t think it would need them anymore.” He exchanged a look with Aziraphale for a long moment until Crowley crashed in between them, leaning over Gabriel and grabbing Aziraphale’s shoulder.  
  
“Wait!” He gasped. “You’re burying the lead, angel! _Sssstatues?_ ” He looked up at Gabriel. “You’re telling me that in some ancient Greek ruin or stuffed away in some museum somewhere there could be a marble carving or bronze casting of your naked corporation?”  
  
“I don’t know if any of them would have survived, but I suppose it’s possible,” Gabriel admitted, and with that Crowley rolled off in laughter again.  
  
“My dear,” Aziraphale scolded. “Really.” He looked at Gabriel. “I’m sorry, we’ve all had a lot to drink.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Gabriel said and smiled. “He’s happy. And… I’m happy too. That I got to tell someone about it. Nobody knew. I didn’t think anybody else Up There would really understand. It’s silly after all, isn’t it? Mortal games, running around in circles, throwing sticks, kicking at each other. But I liked it. It made my corporation feel good.”  
  
“I understand. I do. Not the running portion, frankly that sounds dreadful to me. And I don’t see how having one’s arm twisted or getting kicked could possibly be fun. But the part about liking something and thinking others wouldn’t understand.”  
  
Another moment of quiet fell between them, or mostly quiet at least as it was intermittently interrupted by Crowley’s wheezing gasps.  
  
“Perhaps,” Gabriel finally spoke, “if I am not killed for my disobedience, I might visit and join you for some of those raw fish bits that you enjoy putting into your corporation so much.”  
  
“Sushi,” Aziraphale corrected, his mouth curving upward. “I’d love to show you how to eat it, all the different kinds. Perhaps we could even go on a brisk walk after.”  
  
Off to Gabriel’s right, Crowley gathered himself and snaked his arms around Gabriel’s right arm, pulling himself in closer. “And while you two are off enjoying earthly delights, I’m going to go and find those statues and leave them right in the middle of that blasted empty hallway so that everybody else has to walk past your naked, shining ass every day.”  
  
Gabriel flushed. “There’s no shame in that. She created these forms and there cannot be evil or shame in something She made.”  
  
Crowley shook him by the arm. “Don’t ruin my fun. Tell me the others will be mortified.”  
  
“Maybe.” His brow furrowed and he looked perplexed. “Raphael. You fell before Uriel built the Tower. How do you know what the top floor looks like?”  
  
The slits of his eyes immediately narrowed. “Uuuhhhaaaaaahhhziraphale told me!”  
  
“Crowley,” Aziraphale chided. “You think after all this he’s going to care? That this is some ruse of his?” He stood up and brushed himself off, looking around at the myriad empty bottles. “And speaking of Heaven. Perhaps that ought to be the next topic of discussion. Lest you have forgotten, we are still under ambiguous threat and they still want to bring you in for unspecified but unpleasant punishment.”  
  
Crowley squirmed. “We might have tricked you,” he admitted. “There’s nothing special about us that let us survive the holy water and hellfire. We switched into each other’s corporations. Aziraphale took a dunk in holy water, I stepped into the hellfire.”  
  
“So. When I told Aziraphale to shut up and die…”  
  
“Yeah. That was me.”  
  
Gabriel went red. “I suppose I should have suspected. I never felt hate from Aziraphale like that.” His shoulders hunched. “But I don’t blame you. If it was really him, he would have died. I still don’t completely understand how you can feel about me now with what I did. Tried to do.”  
  
“I’m not _not_ angry about that.” He sighed. “But there are other feelings too. Family is complicated.”  
  
“I might still end up getting you killed.” He drew his a knee in to his chest and hugged his arms around it. “If you aren’t actually immune, if it was just a trick they might figure it out. Michael and Uriel are sharp like that. They threatened you when they told you to go and find me. I know you don’t want to kill me, but what other option is there? Pulling the trick like what you did is risky and I wouldn’t ask that of you. I don’t even know if they’ll use hellfire. I could run but then they might take that out on you too. Even if they still think you’re immune to the weapons of the other side, there are other ways to hurt you. I don’t want that.” He shook his head. “You have to turn me in. And then I will face whatever happens.”  
  
“What if we brought you back and then you ran?” Aziraphale looked around. “Crowley wanted to go out here when the Apocalypse was happening. There are galaxies upon galaxies of stars. The might never find you. And if we handed you over but you escaped from their custody, that’s hardly our fault is it?”  
  
“Because Heaven will be very concerned about fairness if an archangel they want to punish slips through their fingers,” Crowley scoffed.  
  
“Then you come up with a suggestion! One better suggestion that doesn’t involve any of us dying or getting discorporated or having anything burn down!”  
  
Before the demon could reply, Gabriel stood up. “I’m going to go for a run. Don’t worry, I’ll be back. But I need to think.” He snapped his fingers and switched into his jogging outfit before taking off in the direction he was facing.  
  
Once he disappeared into the distance, Aziraphale looked to Crowley. “Are you alright, my dear?”  
  
“Sure. Fine. Why wouldn’t I be. I only got threatened by a bunch of archangels, had my painful past dredged up, and needed to talk my knob of a brother out of trying to get himself killed, all in one day. Except he’s still maybe going to get killed because that's the way these things work when you piss off Heaven.” He stood up and kicked one of the bottles lying on the ground. “I _am_ still angry. But not just at him. At those other wankers upstairs, at me, at the whole blasted universe. And you’re not going to want to hear it, but mostly at Her. For tossing us aside and then not talking to us, letting us live in pain and fear just because it was part of some Plan, whatever adjective you want to give it.”  
  
Aziraphale pursed his lips but didn’t say anything. “Perhaps they could be persuaded to show leniency,” he finally suggested before he started going around picking up the bottles.  
  
“Angel, why are you doing that? We’re light-years away from anything remotely resembling civilization, nobody cares if you litter or recycle.”  
  
“I don’t wan to leave a mess, it’s rude.” He started putting them into the box that still held the pictures. “But you didn’t answer. Since you were their sibling, you must know them better than I do. Gabriel has been with them for six thousand years. How could they simply cut him off like that?”  
  
“They did it to me, didn’t they? Gabriel came late, but Michael was there from the start, smiting us as soon as our angelic essence had gone and the other angels realized it would hurt us. Made sure that we weren’t just Fallen but that we all tumbled down into the pit. And Uriel. You’ve seen the tower. She likes order. Protecting Heaven. And you know how they treated you.”  
  
“I suppose I thought there would be other considerations for someone of their station, that they had known so closely for so long.”  
  
“Did they know him closely?” He picked up the bottle he’d kicked and put it into the box with the rest of the ones Aziraphale had collected. “They didn’t know about what he was doing on earth. Didn’t know he’s been miserable for thousands of years, or didn’t care. Didn’t know him well enough to have any suspicions. But now they do. If they think there’s even a risk he’s turned traitor, they’re not going to tolerate it. Think about it, angel. He oversaw not just you but lots of angels. Suppose he did start thinking along the lines we did? Except he’s the boss of thousands and thousands of angels, the primary contact they have among the archangels. Maybe if he decides to go rogue, they decide to follow. Then it’s not one angel sodding off that they can cover up. Even if only half the ones under his jurisdiction go with him, that’s a huge number of angels doing somebody only knows what, lowering their numbers before they have their next war.”  
  
“Do you really think he’d do that?”  
  
“No.” Crowley shook his head. “He still cares about Heaven too much. I think if they didn’t chase him down he’d have gone back eventually. He still wants to be an angel, still wants to be good like you do. But maybe what he thinks is good by now is different enough that to them, it would be the same as rebellion.”  
  
Aziraphale came over to him and took his hand. “We stopped the Apocalypse. Surely we can come up with something. Perhaps Adam…?”  
  
“Powers are all gone now, far as I know. Not Satan’s kid anymore, remember?” He sighed. “But. Like you said. We’ll think of something.”  
  
Hand in hand, Aziraphale leaned against him. His collar was still slightly damp, but the angel didn’t mind. “It is a very lovely nebula, you know.”  
  
“Thanks.” He looked a the colors set against the dark of space. “We did work rather well together.”

* * *

  
  
As soon as Gabriel starts running, he feels better. His feet still hurt a little from all of the running he did earlier, but somehow he feels lighter. Cleaner. Like a wound that had been festering inside of him has been drained and scraped free of infection. There is still pain there, but it is not the same as it was before, buried deep and aching. His eyes still sting but as he runs, the turmoil subsides step by step.  
  
Crowley is Raphael and he nearly got him killed, but he didn’t die. He lived and he loves him. Loves him with a depth and warmth that he never could have guessed, after so many hundreds and thousands of years. Loves him like it was in the Beginning, even if there are other feelings in there too that make it all more complicated. For the first time, he feels like the love might be enough to make all of the rest of it matter less. Enough to sooth away all of his fear and his anger and his pain. The thought buoys him. Whatever else happens, he has known this before it all comes crashing down.  
  
He remembers his plan when he thought it was Aziraphale’s love he was feeling. That having Aziraphale back in Heaven might make the place itself feel more loved. Not a distant, impersonal love, but true affection. Was it always that way, he wondered? Had it been? Heaven was the way that it was for so long that it was difficult to remember but the Beginning had felt better. Closer. He had known other angels, spoken with other angels, and even if none of them loved him like his brother did, it had been less lonely. Back before reports and management and corner offices.  
  
He wonders who is handling that now. Michael will not wish to because it is too sedentary; she will do as she has always done and train the troops to fight in the War in the hopes that it will still one day happen. Uriel prefers to manage the fortifications of Heaven itself with her small group. Building the lower levels out and out, to corral the flood of souls entering in and to make sure that Downstairs cannot encroach. Which leaves Sandalphon. Sandalphon who loves to smite, who knows ways to punish disobedience and impose order. Sandalphon who has overseen many of the duties that Gabriel could not find time to do. Over the years, he’d taken on so much, Gabriel isn’t even completely certain what all of his duties actually are by now.   
  
He thinks of what became of himself after Raphael had been cast from Heaven. He he thinks of the Host, even further distanced from Her than the archangels are. He thinks of Crowley and Aziraphale, spending so many years on earth and coming to love one another so deeply that it gave them the courage to fool both Heaven and Hell in their attempt to be together. He isn’t very good at such tricks, but he is glad that they are and that they managed to survive. But he is good at other things. Gabriel halts and flashes back to where he started and finds Aziraphale and Crowley there, holding hands and gazing out at the nebula.  
  
“Oh!” Aziraphale looks at him. “Gabriel. Back already.”  
  
“I will go back to resume my duties,” he says decidedly. “I have not Fallen. I’ve done nothing to warrant removal from my post. And if they try to punish me, I will fight them.”  
  
“Fight them?” Crowley turns around. “Are you an idiot?”  
  
“I’m the archangel fucking Gabriel.” He changes into his suit, pristine as it ever was. “Let us return.”

* * *


End file.
